Joe Humphreys

even if they mightn't have wanted to adopt it initially, there's almost a compulsion over time to take it on.

Maybe you're kind of, who are you trying to impress?

Perhaps if you want to look at it just from the individual point of view.

I mean, people might just like to experiment with them.

They might be interesting to try out.

They are a different running experience.

People will say you're propelled forward a bit more.

You're kind of bounced forward.

forward uh onto your onto you know your in your stride um i mean it there's a kind of a a an element as well within within the uk there's been concern around nike in particular advertising around parkrun so they've been putting up billboards at parkruns the uk saying things like um

joggers are welcome walkers will be tolerated there was a big pushback against that wasn't there there was pushback against that in the uk and people were saying the park run organizers themselves were saying look we don't want you to be commercializing our our park runs this is for everyone and in fact walkers are not just tolerated they're welcomed and this is open for walkers as much as it is for joggers so um you know there's there's that in the background and i suppose you have to wonder you know

Why would you, you know, where's the market for this coming from?

It's obviously a commercial operation.

It partly feeds into that wider issue of what is cheating and what is not cheating, what's kind of getting an unfair advantage in sport.

And there is a kind of a separate ethic in sport.

It's not just meant to be a commercial professional operation, even though sport has become very professionalised.

There's a kind of a thing called, you know, on gentlemanly behaviour, as it used to be called, or on sporting behaviour.

And, you know, participants in sport, is there a kind of a notion of sporting behaviour anymore?

You know, should participants in sporting activities be trying to get an edge?

you know, using some expensive piece of technology that other people won't be able to get hold of.

Yeah, again, I'm not trying to condemn any individual person who wants to do this.